A question regarding AIR FORCE ONE or any xxxxx ONE aircraft. If I understand correctly, standard procedure for any aircraft carrying the country's leader (President or Prime Minister) carries the callsign appended with ONE, such as CANFORCE ONE.

Now, what happens if the US President's aircraft is not carrying the President? Would it still be addressed as AIR FORCE ONE? What happens if the President was on a different aircraft? I'm not asking to cause trouble, but curious how the whole ATC system works.

I just realized I posted this in the wrong forum... oops - can somebody move this?

And SAM is for Special Air Mission followed by the Tail code of so said aicraft.

Or for back when JFK was Killed it as AF ONE when it landed when it took off it was SAM2800 or Air Force 2800. (whatever tail # he had.) and when Lyndon Johnson was sworn in during the flight it was later changed to AF ONE.....

And SAM is for Special Air Mission followed by the Tail code of so said aicraft.

Or for back when JFK was Killed it as AF ONE when it landed when it took off it was SAM2800 or Air Force 2800. (whatever tail # he had.) and when Lyndon Johnson was sworn in during the flight it was later changed to AF ONE.....

That would be SAM 26000

And when Nixon was on Air Force One heading to California after he resigned, in mid-flight when Gerald Ford took the Oath of Office, Air Force One radioed to the control and had the callsign changed to Sam 26000. Anyone see the Nat'l Geographic video on this? The control responded, "Give Mr. Nixon our best".

During Clinton's visit to Ottawa I was able to hear the pilot side comms from Montreal during their approach and they used the callsign SAM28000. I do not think the "Air Force 1" call is used outside of the United States.